02-05-2025
Gov. Walz signs new scuba safety standards following two worker deaths
David Anderson, center, testifies before the House Workforce, Labor, and Economic Development Finance and Policy Committee March 11, 2025 in support of new safety standards after his son Joseph, in framed photograph on right, drowned on the job. (Photo by Michele Jokinen/Minnesota House of Representatives Information Services)
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz signed a bill creating new safety standards for workers who use scuba equipment to remove underwater weeds from lakes, following the deaths of two young and inexperienced divers.
Brady Aune and Joe Anderson died two years apart in remarkably similar accidents that their parents blame on the carelessness of their employers. They allege the companies didn't provide adequate training or safety equipment that might have saved their lives.
Neither man was certified in scuba diving. In fact, neither had been scuba diving before they were handed oxygen tanks and weighted belts and sent to pull out weeds in deep murky water with little to no supervision.
'Brady and Joseph were two remarkable young men whose tragic, preventable deaths are a stark reminder that workplace safety cannot be an afterthought,' Walz said in a statement announcing his signature on May 1, International Workers Day.
The law, which had Democratic and Republican authors, requires workers who use scuba equipment to have an open water scuba diver certificate, or more advanced certificate, from a nationally recognized agency.
Commercial diving operations must also ensure a standby diver is available when another worker is in the water, and that workers are trained in first aid and CPR.
Companies must require workers to wear a buoyancy control device that can inflate automatically like the yellow emergency vests on airplanes, as well as an illuminated dive beacon and other safety equipment.
The law took effect immediately.
Aune was 20 years old when he drowned in Lake Minnetonka in Spring 2022 on his fourth day working for $16 an hour for Dive Guys, an aquatic weed removal company owned by Matt Wilkie.
Investigators found Aune's weighted belt was on backward, so he wasn't able to remove it, and that just one of the five employees on the job was trained in scuba diving.
Anderson was 18 years old when he drowned in Lac Lavon in Dakota County in 2024 while working for a different company, Your Lake Aquatic Plant Management. It was his third day on the job and his first time diving underwater.
His parents say he was a strong swimmer, but he received just 15 minutes of training the day he died, from a co-worker who wasn't scuba certified. Anderson's supervisor also wasn't trained in CPR, and while first responders were able to resuscitate him, he died three days later in the hospital.
OSHA fined Dive Guys $128,450 and Your Lake Aquatic Plant Management $730,000, which the company is appealing.
